When you are an anvil, hold you still; when you are a hammer, strike your fill.

George Herbert (1593–1633), the Welsh-born English poet and Anglican priest, is best known for his devotional lyrics and his collection of moral observations, *Jacula Prudentum* (“Javelins of the Wise”), first published posthumously in 1651. The saying “When you are an anvil, hold you still; when you are a hammer, strike your fill” belongs to that tradition of compact, proverbial counsel. It reflects the early modern taste for aphorisms that translate social and spiritual experience into vivid, workaday images—here, the blacksmith’s shop—offering guidance on how to conduct oneself under pressure and how to act when given power.

The proverb contrasts two roles in conflict or hardship: the anvil that receives blows and the hammer that delivers them. Herbert’s counsel is twofold: when circumstances place you in a position of suffering or constraint, endure with steadiness (“hold you still”); when circumstances grant you agency or authority, act decisively (“strike your fill”). The image also implies an ethic of appropriateness—matching one’s response to one’s situation—while warning that roles can reverse. In Herbert’s moral universe, patience under affliction and vigor in duty are complementary virtues, each requiring self-command rather than impulsive reaction.